


Stellar Chronicles: A Light in Darkness

by The_Floof



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Other, Trauma Bonding, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-12 14:12:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16874355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Floof/pseuds/The_Floof
Summary: A sun elf on the cusp of adulthood is taken from his peaceful life on the surface and thrust into a realm of darkness where death and despair loom around every corner.  Young Ora, re-named Rylde soon after his arrival, must survive the training of a dark elf who never tells him her name while he attempts to mitigate the punishments of a fellow captive, Krenyraen.((Chapters will have specific content warnings at the beginning for those who want to avoid depictions of certain acts.))





	1. First Day Blues

An elven boy, no more than 95 years old, felt the sharp edge of a knife cut down along his cheek. He couldn't breathe, something covered his mouth, something bound his whole body together–

A feminine hand peeled the webbing from his face. She spoke words in a language he couldn't understand, while he stayed propped up on a stand, gasping for air.

Strangely warm air, in a torch-lit cave. A dark-elven woman spoke to an unseen man, still in words the boy couldn't understand.

Then she turned to him. She asked a question in the common tongue, "What is your name?"

"O-Ora," the boy answered.

She nodded. "Good, good. Direct answers for direct questions." She scanned him as thoroughly as she could, what with a massive amount of webbing holding him taut. "I hope you aren't _always_ this easy."

"What? What are you–" Ora's lips shut as her finger pressed up against them.

"You don't say _anything_ if you're not answering a question. Understand?" She gave him a toothy smile, awaiting an answer.

"Yes."

This answer, he thought, would widen her smile. Yet she just frowned at him. "Are you scared?" she asked him, her fingernails gently touching the cut her dagger made moments before. Her magic healed this little accident in moments, leaving no evidence that she'd ever damaged the merchandise.

"Yes."

"That's good," she said, softly patting him on his head. "Now, about your name. We can't go calling you 'Ora'. That's too cutesy for you." She looked upon his stunned face, and when she was sure he wouldn't interject, she continued. "Rylde. That's a good name for you. So, now I'll ask you again. What's your name?"

Ora's lips quivered, took several attempts to make the new sounds– Her hand smacked across his face.

" _Tell me your name_ when I ask you," she said, sternly gazing down her nose toward him. " _What_ is your _name_?"

"R-Ryl-Rylde." He forced the word out, struggling with its pronunciation as tears welled up in his eyes.

"Say your name again," she commanded. He couldn't see her anymore. The tears clouded his sight completely.

"Rylde."

"Good boy." She pulled her knife back out of its holster. "Now let's get you to your new home." She wedged the blade between the boy and the webbing that bound him, cutting away. He looked around, searched for any way he could run–

"Don't even think about it," she told him as the last bit of webbing peeled away. "Even if you outrun me, you aren't going to outrun the _real_ monsters out there." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him along into a pitch-dark building. The world felt closed in and empty all at once as she led him around corners, in circles, down lengths of halls. They passed by another prisoner– really close by, by the sound of her soft sobs.

He heard hinges creak and stumbled into a cage when the woman's hands shoved him toward it. He tried to stretch out, and only hit his hands on the sides. He hit his _head_ on the top of the cage when he tried to do much more than sit. He felt around, found an empty bucket. No pillow. No blanket either.

"Comfortable?" she asked, and though he couldn't see, he could practically hear her smiling.

He curled up in a corner and nodded. The bolts they used to attach each piece of metal in its lattice formation dug into his back. The bottom of the cage wasn't too cold, but still just a flat sheet of metal.

"Good." It didn't matter how he responded, really. He was sure she would have said that either way. "Rylde."

He stared forward for a moment, then realized she was calling him and unburied his head from between his knees.

"We'll work on your reaction time." The cage shook as she gave it a pat. "Rest well. Your training starts tomorrow. Remember: You only talk when you're answering a question." Her shoes hit the stone softer and softer as Ora nestled into himself.

 


	2. The Five-Year Interim and a Spot of Training

The words in their language hit him like a ton of bricks; their variation of the elven tongue felt just as foreign to him as Common once had. She gave him his lessons, always outside his cramped cage and chained up to a wall in tattered spider-silk. The rattle of chains nearby often made him wonder if he was truly alone with the woman, but her orders seemed _pointed_ at him alone. _“If you speak, that's 30 lashes,”_ she'd say, every time they started.

“ _This course will last five years. You will be tested at the end of each year. Each failure is 100 lashes more than the last. So don't fail,”_ she said, at the very beginning of it all. _“If you fail two or more years in the course, you're going to take it **again**. Your lashing total will, of course, carry over.”_

Ora-- No, Rylde studied to himself when he was left in his cage, though if he ever uttered a syllable above the level of a quiet whisper, he would be taken to a bare room, strapped into a pair chain shackles that hung from the ceiling and flogged in the darkness.

Each and every time, healing magic washed over him once he returned to his cage. She couldn't damage the _merchandise,_ after all...

The tests each consisted of a long series of questions, ranging from simple one-word answers in the first year to long sentences or even verbal essays in the fifth year.

During the third year, which Rylde only managed to count thanks to the two tests he passed, she began to give her usual rule in the new language. He understood it by now, and if he didn't, he'd be in for a world of trouble.

The fourth and fifth years used more complicated language than ever before, and though Rylde kept up, he learned that he was but a hair away from failure.

“How fortunate,” she told him. “Seems you're a bit more clever than most. Shame, if you'd just missed one more question...”

Rylde couldn't believe it. He'd gone through all five years of this without a single punishment, even for its own sake.

Maybe he could keep this up...?

He could hope.

Next came obedience training. Each time she called his name, he was meant to look toward her face. _In pitch darkness_.

He had five seconds to react when she called out for _Rylde_. When he managed that, he had three seconds. Then two. Then one.

“Rylde.”

His reaction time wasn't even a second, now. She pulled him from his cage and directed him down the hallways, never leaving contact with his skin. From the way her elbow bent up against his back, so that her thin fingers gripped the back of his neck, he could feel how much shorter than him she was. It starkly contrasted the idea that kept floating around whenever he pictured her; taller, more imposing... None of that was the case, and yet, he walked stiffly where he guided.

They stopped walking.

She shoved a bucket and wet rag into his hands and ordered him to, “Clean the floor.”

Rylde simply nodded, then listened as her footsteps trailed away. “Okay,” he whispered. “She's not going to light anything, got it...” He set the bucket down on the ground, and the wet rag back in the bucket. He got his bearings first, felt from corner to corner and wall to wall.

As his bare feet stepped, he noticed wet mess and flaky, dry mess alike-- the former near a concave center and the latter around the edges. The first thing he'd do, then, was clean off his own feet. Once he wiped those down, he'd scrub in the center. The goop made him want to throw up each time he felt the rag pick more of it up, but he kept scrubbing until none of the goop remained.

He moved on to the next spot, and the next, in an outward spiral that finally ended at the far-right corner from the open doorway.

“All right, clever boy,” her voice chimed from far closer than he imagined she was. “I'm _impressed_. Not that you did it, of course. I'm impressed you didn't panic. Most people think, 'Oh, oh no, I can't see, I can't do _anything_...'" She laughed at her own bit of mockery. "But don't try to get _too_ clever, now. Nobody likes a flight risk.”

Rylde nodded.

She took him back to his cage without another word.


	3. Obedience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((This chapter has a warning for non-con and for further invasive prodding after the fact.))

"Rylde."

Her voice commanded hazel eyes to point up, toward her voice, and though he could not see her body, he could hear metal click against metal. He could hear the hinges of his cage creak open, and felt the warmth of another body– a hand that gripped long, golden locks and pulled him out of his cramped space and into the stale air.

"Come."

He followed her barked order in silence, tugged along a dark hallway by his hair.

"Arms up."

His hands raised up as far as he could reach. Her hands gripped the bottom of his shirt and slid up his sides as she pulled it from his body and discarded the garment out of his sight. Thick shackles clamped around his wrists in the next moment, holding him where he stood.

"Good boy," she cooed. "Good, good boy." Her hand stroked his cheek, while his head drooped past the gap between his stretched arms.

He kept his eyes closed behind a dirty mop of hair as he awaited the sting of a whip that never cracked down on him.

"Rylde."

His head rose toward the voice. In his view, a torch caught fire. Her hand slunk away from it as she let it burn next to the doorway. In this small sliver of light, finally the gold elf called Rylde could _see_.

She threw a thick blanket from atop another of her people, trapped in a cage that barely gave enough room to breathe.

"When I lock the door, he's going to prepare you." She turned her gaze on the one in the cage, staring down her nose as she unlocked the door. "Your orders are as before. When he struggles, hurt him."

She turned on her heel as the male tried to squirm his way out of his cage and shut the door behind her. A loud click filled the cavernous room, and left the two of them in a stalemate of silence.

Rylde turned to look at the whole of this room he found himself in, and found it was nearly barren, save the shackles, the cage, and a few jars of something in a corner. One of which, the unknown prisoner held in his arms.

"Listen," the other prisoner started. "I want this as much as you do." His head tilted, and though he waited for any reaction in the younger prisoner's body or expression, but the gold elf merely hung limp. He waved his hand in front of those hazel eyes, and still got no reaction.

"Fuck, you're already broken," the more talkative prisoner whispered, mostly to himself. "Okay, direct questions only…" He passed the jar from one hand to the other, keeping the outside warm. "What's your name, kid?"

"Rylde." The sun elf spoke in whisper-like monotone.

"Your _real_ name," the other insisted.

However, Rylde repeated, "This one is Rylde."

The stranger dropped his question, frowning. He popped the lid off that jar and set it down next to the hanging one's feet. All the while, he circled around behind the other captive, then finally pressed chest to back, breathing down the other's neck as he hooked his thumbs between trousers and hips. "Do you know what's going to happen to you?"

"Y-yes. This one thinks so." The sun elf's whisper shook. He whimpered, tensed as the waist of his trousers fell down to his ankles. He heard fabric drop again, behind him, before the other prisoner closed what little gap there was left between them. Skin pressed against skin. Every muscle in Rylde's body tightened up.

"You might think clenching is going to help you, but it'll just make this hurt." Skin and skin separated as the unnamed prisoner picked up his jar again and stuck his fingers in. "You've got to relax."

Rylde felt a slick finger snake inside of him. It wiggled, circled, and for each movement, he gave softer and softer whimpers, until he managed to quiet himself down to small, shaking breaths.

"I'm doubling up now." The warning preceded the event only by a second, and a second finger penetrated Rylde's behind. The pair stretched out wide inside of him, closed, then turned and stretched out again. "Ever done this before?"

"N-no."

The other heaved a sigh. "So, the more I stretch it out like this, the easier it'll be on you when I get in there." The thumb followed after pointer and middle, stimulating the rim in time with the sound of his breaths.

"All right. Just about time." The hand left him open wide, as the prisoner scooped up more from inside that jar and rubbed it along his member. Skin pressed against skin again, but this time, the prisoner behind rubbed himself between Rylde's cheeks. His slicked hands reached around, stroked the inside of light bronze thighs that dripped with oil.

Those slick fingers caressed the sack, cupping softly before they migrated up the shaft. That hand soon wrapped around his member and stayed completely still.

"Rock back and forth for me."

Rylde did as he was told, slowly swinging his body forward into the other's hand and backward, far enough for the thumb to rub against his tip. The other thrust into him during his backward swing– he froze, cried out in equal parts surprise and sensation as he felt every inch sink inside his body.

Even if he wanted to speak, all he could manage was a shuddering noise he didn't know he could make.

He made another each time his fellow prisoner thrust inside of him, and soon his legs buckled underneath him.

So he hung by his hands, bruising his wrists as he played the part of a rag doll. He felt numb for a time, making the experience last forever and no time at all, both at the same time.

Dizziness hit him like a ton of bricks when he realized it was over. It was over and he was being dragged back to his cage in the pitch darkness.

All he wanted to do was rest.

**She wouldn't let him.**

It hadn't been five minutes and he heard the click of her heels against the stone. His weary eyes traveled off toward the noise, but only managed the most general of directions.

"Rylde."

His gaze pointed up.

He felt a weight press down on the roof of his cage, and he listened to her hum a sweet little tune to herself.

"You were _such_ a good boy," she cooed. "So obedient. No trouble at all."

Something slammed hard against the roof.

"Nobody's _that_ easy their first time. **_Especially_** _not Ar'quess._ " He heard the keys jingle against the lock as she hissed out curses. "So how'd he hide it _this_ time...?" The hinges squeaked. Her hands pressed and prodded all over his body. "Turn around."

He wiggled as best as he could in the space he had until his back turned to the entrance. The pants he'd just gotten back, yanked down to his thighs.

Her hands parted his cheeks. Her tongue clicked. "No bruising... Hmph." Her hands dropped. "He almost pulled one over on me... _Almost_."

As quick as he could, Rylde shimmied around and grabbed for her arm-- caught it, stared down into the darkness at what he presumed to be the hand of a woman who now wanted to beat him to a pulp.

"Rylde..."

Her tongue clicked again.

"Who gave you permission to touch me?"

Tears started to well up in his eyes, but he wouldn't let go. "Wait... This one can explain..."

" _Who_ gave you permission to _speak_?"

Her voice dropped lower than it ever had before as her free hand tugged at his hair.

"You asked a question," he answered. "That's permission."

Her grip loosened. A mirthful chuckle left her lips and she pet the silly boy's cheek. "You... are not as clever as you think you are." Her palm patted his cheek twice in quick succession. "Let go of me." His grip wavered-- fell, once he pictured her hand slapping across his face. Her palm slid down. Her finger pressed up against the bottom of his chin, forced his eye to point upward.

"Well? _Explain_."

The two stalled in silence.

"Speak!"

Rylde's lip quivered. His throat tried to make sounds-- his lips stopped them in their tracks.

She huffed. "What's the problem, hm?"

"You didn't ask a question," he squeaked, and bit his lip all over again once he answered. Her hand dropped from his chin, and he heard the _exasperation_ in her sigh-- more of a growl than a sigh, really. If he wasn't worried about what she might do to him for that answer, he might have wanted to laugh at her frustration.

" _Fine_. Forget the questions. You may speak to me when I give you permission. Or when you're _asking_ permission. Got it?"

"Got it." Rylde pushed his luck enough for one day.

"Now explain." She barked a single derisive chuckle, and though he couldn't see it, he could just feel her looking down on him.

"Well... You didn't _tell_ him to be rough," Rylde started. "And, you told him to hurt this one if it struggled, and it... it don't want to hurt. It's not so good with pain..." He exhaled a shaking breath. _Gods, this was easier when he didn't have to talk_.

The end of his speech was punctuated by her sharp laughter. Her palms held his head between the two of them. "Oh, you _really_ aren't as clever as you _think_ you are. Tell me, _what_ was worth the punishment you earned just now? If you're really _so_ averse to pain."

Rylde's jaw clamped shut-- opened again as he averted his gaze. "He obeyed."

" _He obeyed,_ " she repeated, mocking him. "And what does a _traitor_ care about a _dhaeraow_? Who supposedly _didn't_ spare you?"

"He and this one are _same_ ," Rylde shot back. "His cage is just like this one's. But even smaller."

"Oh, my." She laughed yet again. "You spoke a little too much, now, haven't you? I'm sure he'd love to know just how much you pity him... When he gets the whip for your disobedience." Her presence vanished from the cage. The door closed. The lock clicked.

"W-wait..."

Her tongue clicked. "Now, now. Every word you say to me without permission is another lash for him."

His jaw clamped shut as he stared out into the distance. His head hung.

Those heels finally clicked away.

 


	4. But You Will

"Rylde."

His eye hurried to point toward her– left of his cramped little cage, above his head. Though the darkness showed no signs if he'd made the right guess, the soft pats on the top of his cage told him everything.

He crawled toward the gate on his hands and knees, then sat pretty and awaited the hinges' slow squeak.

"You will return to that room," she told him. "You will prepare for any time your master deigns to keep you in his room for the night. Now, come."

He crawled out of his cage, then sat on his knees and pointed his gaze up expectantly into the darkness. Her hand hovered over his head… then vanished from his immediate vicinity.

"Crawl."

Her heels clicked against the stone, and he crawled as fast as he could to follow the noise.

The sound stopped. His breath hitched– He perked up and searched the empty air for any sign of her presence, and felt his back freeze over as the nothingness around him increased. The silence locked him firmly in place, even as the flat stone underneath him agitated his hands and knees.

Rylde heard the hinges of a cage squeak. The eruption of fire onto an oil-soaked torch settled his nerves and he melted into a puddle on the ground. The shackles hung ominously over his head, but nobody told him to stand or lifted him up to chain him in place.

He heard the door shut and the lock click into place. He recognized the blanket that once covered the other prisoner's cage when it covered his body, as a pair of dirt-covered, charcoal-grey feet stepped through his line of sight. His gaze crawled up the other prisoner's leg, along tattered shorts, to the slightly emaciated abdomen of the other captive. His eye could venture no further up, but soon, it wouldn't need to.

The other prisoner squatted down next to Rylde, who still lay on the hard stone floor. Rylde caught the look in that pair of dark red eyes. He looked the way Rylde felt: Like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

A question popped into Rylde's mind for a moment. _What if we lie and say it happened?_ He could pretend to be spaced-out again. The other captive could pretend to want to die even more than he already did.

Except the other captive must have already thought of that. Multiple times, judging by how she reacted the other day, when Rylde hadn't suffered any bruising-- apart from the self-inflicted ones that the shackles gave him when he couldn't hold himself up anymore.

**She** **was watching** , or if not that, she was good at seeing through others' facades. Why else would she have left the two alone?

A golden-brown hand reached from under the covers– stopped short millimeters away from the top of a soot-shaded hand that dangled from a squatting knee. Rylde bit his lip.

"Asking to touch, huh?" the other's weary voice half-whispered. "That'll get you some points with the boss. Doubt you really want that, though. So I'm gonna–" His half-dead expression turned to one of shock as he witnessed Rylde's hand retreat while hazel eyes pointed down like a scorned puppy's. "Hey…"

Shock turned to sympathy as he witnessed Rylde wipe the beginning of a tear away before it could form. "C'mon, don't…" Rylde's hand snaked back out into the open air and hovered over the sighing drow's.

"Yeah. Yeah, I gotcha." His hand wrapped around Rylde's, and he dropped from his squat in the process. "Nobody out there is going to do this for you…"

" _You_ will," Rylde countered, quiet as could be. His hand twisted; their fingers intertwined.

The captive forced out a scoff. _That_ wasn't going to get this one any points with their boss… But he started to understand. Rylde was not _broken_ as he once thought. Rylde was _clever_.

Maybe a little too clever, there, if he could manipulate his fellow captive that easily. Maybe not enough if he showed his hand like that.

The captive climbed under that dark blanket next to Rylde, hovered a hand over oily golden locks– His eye turned away. Rylde unlinked his fingers from the other's and pressed that hovering hand onto his scalp.

"Um… What's your name…?" More quiet words left Rylde's mouth, and the other tried to offer a smile– Though it fell flat.

"Krenyraen." Literally, _foolish heretic_. Krenyraen softly pet the length of the surface elf's long hair, and though Rylde tensed– waited for the sharp _yank_ he came to expect from the 'boss' as Kren had called her– but he settled after a few minutes of this.

Rylde nestled into Kren's chest– He shifted, slipped his garments down his own legs, past his feet.

"Hey, you're gonna want to keep that under you," Kren explained. "Rubbing against the stone is…" He let his wince finish that sentence for him.

Rylde gathered his trousers back up and laid them down to sit upon. He laid back down, but this time turned away from Kren as his bare behind pressed close to the other's covered crotch.

* * *

Panting, Rylde grasped at Kren's hand with both of his and wrapped the foreign arm around his body. As Krenyraen tried to pull away, a soft, sad whimper escaped Rylde's throat… so Kren merely resigned himself to his fate, now.

Rylde wanted someone to treat him nice for once… It didn't have to be Kren himself, it just helped that they were in the same boat and all. That was the conclusion Kren came to. This was just a sad attempt at regaining some of the treatment he got back home, that's all.

"Hungry?" he asked the surface elf.

"This one is fine." Rylde's growling stomach said otherwise.

Krenyraen ignored quiet whines of protest as he got out from underneath the salt-scented blanket and dug up what looked like an oddly-colored loaf of bread. This, he broke in half to offer to his 'guest' of sorts.

Rylde settled down and ate, though pouted every so often in Kren's direction.

"Don't give me that look…"

Rylde doubled down on 'that look'.

Kren peered from his seat in front of the sun elf. "Cut it out." The pout persisted. "Look– I–" Rylde's hand outstretched from underneath the blanket, and hovered over the top of Kren's again.

"Yeah… Fine…" He could indulge this. It'd make the rest of this test easier on both of them, anyway.

“Sorry,” Rylde spoke between bites of that thick, dense bread.

Krenyraen's head tilted. “The hell are you sorry for?” he asked, his voice quiet as he focused a bit too hard on the hand in his.

A dense lump of bread fell down Rylde's throat. “This one... This one let... itself... say it felt... bad, for you. She... gave you... punishment for... this one's disobedience.” He still struggled to recall words, or struggled to build enough confidence to say them, but he did the best that he could either way.

Their hands unlinked, to Rylde's dismay. Then Krenyraen's fingers sifted softly through golden locks, to Rylde's delight. “She lied,” he told the surface-dweller, “Simple as. She wanted to make you think that you hurt someone, so she could punish you without exerting an ounce of effort.”

The two finished their meal, and Krenyraen climbed back under the blanket. “Still need a minute,” he announced, as he noticed how close the other snuggled up. Rylde stopped wiggling in that moment and let himself bask in another body's warmth. The floor might not have been the most comfortable thing in the world, but it never was as cold as he expected and there was plenty of room for his legs to spread out.

For a moment, he focused on how Kren's feet couldn't reach down quite as far as his could. Everyone was so much shorter than he felt they ought to have been. Then again, the images of these people did always depict them smaller than those who remained on the surface, on average. Rylde used to think that was just to make the surface elves look superior.

Rylde settled into reverie for a time, content to listen to the other breathe as they lay in their featureless room. Krenyraen seemed content to allow this, or perhaps he settled into the very same trance. Rylde didn't feel the need to ask.

When he returned to his usual state of consciousness, Rylde rubbed up against the other yet again.

“Ready to go, huh?” Kren asked. “Didn't think you'd be this eager after... You know.”

Rylde turned his head enough to see the other through the corner of his eye. “Just... No surprise again. Let this one be ready? A-and--” He grabbed the hand that draped over his middle and guided it over his thigh. With this guidance, that hand stroked along his backside and squeezed his cheek. “More... More touching.” He removed his guiding hand, and it seemed that Kren got the memo and let his hands wander without any help from Rylde.

Though he protested, “No one's gonna do whatever you ask them...”

“ _You_ will,” Rylde countered.

* * *

Rylde's body felt light and heavy all at the same time. He rested quietly in the other's arms, feeling a slight fog wash over his mind. Krenyraen's slow, even breaths soothed him enough that he nearly fell into a trance again.

“This one... This one hopes this isn't the last time,” Rylde muttered, just loud enough for Kren to hear. The hand that rubbed along his arm was all the response he'd get, it seemed.

So it went, on and off, for uncountable hours. _She_ likely counted them, but the two in the near-featureless room couldn't do such a thing, not with all of their distractions in the way. Krenyraen continued to share his meals with his 'guest' of sorts and Rylde took in all the _space_ the two had all to themselves.

For a moment, Krenyraen even managed to take that guilty look off his face.

Rylde considered that a win.


	5. Rewards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Dub-con at best below.))

“Rylde.”

He lifted his head up and a bit to the left. The hinges squeaked open without the sound of a lock's click to precede it, like it had all the other times before. Now that he thought about it, had he heard the lock turn after he came back from Krenyraen's chamber and returned to his cage?

He hadn't.

“Come.”

Rylde crawled out the door of his cage, and sat on his knees before her.

“Rise.”

He pushed himself up from the floor and let bare feet lay flat on the ground. Her hand laced through his hair-- tugged down and forward.

“Follow.”

She let him go, then, and he followed the sound of heels on stone.

“You've been well-behaved,” she cooed. “Funny. I thought Krenyraen's little fib would have sparked _rebellion_ in you.” She giggled like a small child in a candy store. “Oh, but you're clever, aren't you? You must have seen right through him.”

His heart flipped and flopped in place, painfully twisted around itself-- He dropped his hand from his chest once he finally realized it was there.

She giggled. “Oh, you _didn't_ , did you?” She ran her hand gently through his hair, again and again. It sent a chill down his spine and stiffened his neck, but he kept walking as long as she did, though she now stood by his side. “Krenyraen must have wanted to _protect_ you... but don't worry. He _is_ your whipping boy. Next time, I'll have to make you watch...”

Rylde turned his head toward her-- she pulled his hair and forced his head to turn away from her.

“Eyes forward, Rylde.”

He sucked in a breath, and listened to it shudder back out. “Permission to speak, mistress?”

“Mm, no,” she decided, spoken as casually as if she deliberated between which topping to put on her bread that day. “Listening to you beg would be boring. Attempts at persuasion would annoy me. You _could_ answer one little question for me, though. What Krenyraen did to you, he does to many, many people in these halls... Only the cute ones; the ones I think people are _going_ to use that way. And, I've been watching. Most of his guests really hate it, you know. What changed in those few days between, hm? What made you so _eager_ the second time?” She pet his head again, soft and slow.

“T-this one... this one... k-kept... kept thinking about... his hand, on its... a-and inside...” His head sunk down, but she didn't force him to face forward here. “It wanted... more of that.”

“His _hand_ ,” she repeated. Rylde's nod prompted a quick, self-satisfied laugh from her. “So you've been fantasizing, about his hands...” Her fingers dropped from his hair and cupped his shoulder, now. “If it's dark enough, you could use your own hands and pretend it's him... couldn't you? Or does it not matter if it's him...? If _I_ was to hold onto your shaft...” She trailed off, stepped behind him, looped her arms underneath his and hooked her fingers between clothing and hips. “And tell you to fuck my hand... would you _want_ that?”

Rylde tried to find his voice, but he could only nod.

“Ah... Males. Such simple creatures,” she cooed, pulling his waistbands down to his thighs, where they would inevitably fall to his ankles. “Everything is fine for them as long as they're allowed to drop seed every so often.” Her hands cupped his cheeks for a moment, but traveled around to the inside of his thighs soon enough. Then to his half-masted shaft, where it grew in her fingers.

“I'm not looking down on you for it,” she assured him. “I envy this simplicity. A simple male is so much happier than his far more _complex_ distaff counterpart... Even you, who is so clever for a male, can't compete with most females...” She circled her finger between foreskin and tip-- forced a brand new noise from him that lived between a moan and a shivering syllable. “But you're more satisfied for it... Wouldn't you say?”

Rylde nodded between gasps, and her hand finally wrapped around his member.

“Well, go on,” she coaxed. “You know what to do.”

He rocked his hips forward and backward, again and again, to the occasional encouraging _“Good boy”_ that she whispered into his ear.

His seed spilled onto the ground in front of him and he breathed heavily-- still held by his dick from behind.

“That's a good boy,” she finally said for the last time that day. “Did you like your reward? After all, your lock was removed, and you didn't even venture out a _little_! I would have _caught_ you, but...” She stopped touching him altogether. He heard her steps, but he didn't feel her close to him.

He quickly pulled his rags back up to his waist.

“Enjoy your new chambers,” she cooed, just before Rylde heard a door shut behind him.

In the darkness, he felt around the room, from corner to corner and wall to wall. Something long and wooden blocked him from the top-left corner, and when he felt around on that object, he noticed cushioning on top, a long piece of fabric-- No pillow, but this _was_ a bed.

The chamberpot was another bucket, kept under the bed until he moved it out from there.

In one corner, a collection of jars, but he wouldn't open them until and unless he could see inside.

In the middle of the ceiling, a pair of shackles hung down.

The first thing Rylde did after that was lay on the bed and stretch out his legs.

 


	6. The Workday

Rylde stood after the next several hours of stark aloneness. He felt only the air around him as he stretched his arms. He started to bend and twist his middle, then bent his arm over his head-- and _still_ didn't hit anything on the ceiling! He wondered if he could even reach the ceiling and jumped up as best as he could to try...

He hit his hand on the metal chains that hung down, but couldn't feel the ceiling in the room. He hummed to himself, then an idea struck him.

He climbed up on top of the bed and jumped as high as he could!

His fingers barely grazed the ceiling. He muttered a few words to himself in his native tongue as he slid back down onto the cushions and made a show for himself out of swinging his legs back and forth and feeling all of that open air around him.

She was going to make this his new personal hell. Yet, as if to spite her, he would relish the limited freedom he now held.

He stopped moving-- The scrape of metal against stone caught his full, undivided attention; his eye turned straight to where he knew the door was.

Her voice resounded from the darkened doorway, “Good reaction time. Come, Rylde.”

He shuffled off the bed and briskly stepped toward the doorway-- Her hand yanked at his long strands, and she dragged him down a corridor unlike the others. The _noise_ filled his ears, a symphony of grunting and loud _thuds_ that Rylde would attribute to hard labor for now.

“Now, I _know_ what you might be thinking,” she mused. Somehow, despite the growing noise, her voice still felt like the loudest sound in the world. He took a shaking breath and did his best to point his gaze in the direction of her voice, to which she firmly ordered, “Eyes forward,” before she continued in the same tone as before. “You must be thinking, _'But, Mistress! This one isn't built for labor!'_ ”

Rylde tried not to cringe when he heard the voice she gave him; low and froggy and _slow_ to boot. Like he was an imbecile.

“ _'This one is so much better at playing living sex toy!'_ And you're thinking that because that's _true_. The sad fact is, you _like_ playing a living sex toy. I can't just give you things you like all the time. That's madness.” She chuckled to herself, apparently satisifed with a joke that Rylde couldn't tell she told. “Besides, _sun elves_ should learn the value of _hard work_. You people never do try to _earn_ your keep.”

Rylde bit his tongue, quite literally, just to keep his mouth shut.

She had to laugh. “Good, good boy.” The hand that pulled him along unlaced from his hair for a moment and pat the top of his head. “Remember, I won't punish _you_ if you backtalk me.” After one last pat, her fingers laced with his strands again and she pulled him further along.

He entered a torch-lit room, full of humans and a pale, eyeless human-like creature here or there. Many performed the monotonous task of pulling huge boulders on a wagon from a wall on one end to the other, where someone else waited to cut the large stone into a more usable shape.

She called out to the crowd, “Quilor! With me!” Then she turned a quarter of the way toward Rylde. “Take his place in the line.”

Rylde passed by a human man, covered in dirt and sweat and whose hands were covered in calluses, like an elderly farmer might have. She left with the human she'd called _Quilor_ , either a name that denoted him as a slave and fool or a name that denoted him as a goblin's prey.

It was better than _Rylde_.

He took a closer look at the wagon. All it was, was a wheeled metal box with ropes attached that, looking at everyone else there, he'd have to pull across a room for some reason. He turned, then, to the pile of rocks on his side of the room, all of different shapes and sizes. Someone much bigger and bulkier than he could ever dream of being lifted a boulder half his size from right in front of his eyes...

As he stared at the spot where that just happened, he had to wonder if that person was showing off or trying to alleviate the burden for everyone else.

He found one about half _that_ size, bent down, got as good of a hold as he could on it... and heaved. And heaved again. The damn thing wouldn't budge. He glared down at the offending stone, then rolled it toward his wagon, which he tipped over to let the outer edge flip the damned thing up _for_ him until it finally sat pretty on top.

Then it came to pulling the thing. The side of the room that had all those stone cutters, he estimated to be about forty feet from him. He could manage that, but why was the room so long?

He just pulled and soon handed off his haul to the blind creature at the other end. It seemed to stand around the same size as any human, and was apparently trusted enough to handle the potential weapons that were its stonecutting tools.

He walked back to the other side and repeated the process, over and over. It seemed like this wall of rocks wasn't going to end. Not only that, but the more hauls everyone on his side managed to deliver, the more distance they put between themselves and the stone cutters, whose finished products all fell into large and seemingly bottomless bags.

He heard everyone else get replaced the same way he did before, one by one, each ten minutes apart for twenty-nine other people.

Eventually, he lost count of how many hauls he managed to carry. He lost count of the minutes between each replacement. His arms felt like boiled noodles, but he kept pulling, kept maneuvering.

“Rylde!”

Rylde stopped in his tracks.

“With me!”

With groggy steps and his eyes to the floor, he followed the sound of her voice. He hardly noticed a thing about the person he passed by on his way.

Her arm reached around his shoulders as they walked, and before the door closed on the light completely, he was sure he saw the glint of a smile on her face. “Good boy,” she cooed. “Tell me, how do you feel?”

“This one's breaths are on fire...”

“Good, good,” she replied, as if she hadn't heard a word Rylde breathed out. “I think I'll give you one more reward. You can have _light_... in your new cell. Or you can have a cellmate. What do you think?”

He bit his lip. Light would be nice, but what would he do with it? So, he asked, “May this one select cell-mate?”

To this, she laughed. “No. But I have a sneaking suspicion you _want_ him anyway.”

He squinted his eyes down. “Cell-mate, then.”

She patted his shoulder. “Silly boy. I asked what you _thought_ , not what you'd _choose_.” She shoved him into his cell, now dimly lit by a single torch in the back. The shackles in the center held a familiar pair of hands in their metal grasp.


End file.
